Is India a land of the enlightened?

Question: Third question: Osho, isn’t India a land of the enlightened? A gentleman from the Radhasoami sect came to me and asked, “How many planes of existence do you accept? Our master accepts fourteen planes; the fourteenth is called Sach Khand!” He had even brought a chart—fourteen planes. And the chart was quite a provocation: Mohammed, Moses, etc., are in the fifth plane—stuck there. Jesus and Zarathustra a bit farther—sixth. Mahavira and Buddha a little higher—seventh. Great kindness on their part! Then Kabir, Nanak, etc., a little higher still—eighth. But only their own guru reached the fourteenth—Sach Khand! He asked me, “How many planes do you accept? What do you think of our guru? Are these planes real?” I said, “Absolutely real—because I have seen your guru stuck in the fourteenth.” He said, “What do you mean?” “I’m in the fifteenth—Mahasach Khand!” “What are you saying! Never heard of that.

If india is such an unspiritual country, why are so many enlightened beings born here?

Try to understand me: when I say a man is spiritual I mean he is as easily flowing on the outside as he flows inside. He is whole. Neither has the East been spiritual nor has the West been spiritual. The West has been materialist and the East has been spiritualist -- but not spiritual. The West believes in the philosophy of the outside, the East believes in the philosophy of the inside. The spiritual person is one who has come to that ultimate synthesis between the outer and the inner, between matter and consciousness, between body and soul. In the real spiritual person East and West meet and disappear. The really spiritual person is neither of the East nor of the West; he is global. Where he exists is not the point. His approach is global because his approach is total. He's whole, that's why I call him holy.…

Osho, on seeing your ashram I had the sense of another world. How meaningful is this in our country, India?

Poverty, wretchedness, India’s problems—all can disappear; only give India a right perspective to resolve them. Our problems are of our own making; therefore removing them is easy. Today there is such technological progress in the world that India has no need to remain poor. If we are poor, perhaps it is because we want to remain so; we are poor because our ways of thinking are foolish. We have the most beautiful land, the most beautiful sky. We are not short of talent either. But we have forgotten to honor talent. So whenever a talented person is born here, he too has to leave India. We have become adept at honoring the dull-witted. We have invented such criteria that only the dull-witted can qualify. Someone gets up at five in the morning—our respect! Someone does not smoke—our respect! Someone eats only greens—our respect! Someone wears khadi—our respect! Someone performs daily…

Osho, which is the best nation in the world? And which do you consider the worst?

India is both, because here I am—and so are you. India has touched the highest peaks of consciousness in this world, and now I also see you lying in the gutters. You have become so accustomed to the gutters that you have turned them into temples. You don’t even wish to get out! There was a revolution in France. There was a central prison, the Bastille, where only those sentenced for life were kept. Their handcuffs and shackles were broken only when they died. Once the locks were closed, the keys were thrown into wells. In dark cells, bound in heavy chains, thousands of prisoners lived in the Bastille. When the revolution came, naturally the revolutionaries felt that the first thing to do was to free these prisoners. They had suffered the most. They broke the gates of the Bastille. But the prisoners were not willing to leave the prison,…

Osho, India is a land whose very life-breath is religion. One proof is that even the most insignificant gurus here do not keep their number of disciples below a hundred thousand. But it is surprising that a guru as radiant as the sun, like you, has so few Indian disciples. Kindly shed some light on this.

Ramanand Agnihotri! No country has religion as its life-breath! Not India, not China, not Japan, not Iran, not Pakistan—no country. Countries cannot be religion-breathed. Countries are political units; what could they possibly have to do with being religion-breathed! Do countries have any prana—any life-breath at all? If there is no life-breath, how will there be religion-breath? Individuals are religious, not countries. Not castes, not communities, not organizations—only individuals. That is the dignity of the individual. Did it never occur to you that first there must be life-breath? At the very least, there should be life—religious or irreligious—but life. Do countries have any life-breath? These are political fictions, political tricks. Just a while back, before 1947, Pakistan was India; now it is not. What will you say? Is Pakistan now religion-breathed or not? Before 1947 it was; now? Now it is not. Bangladesh earlier was religion-breathed because it was part of…